Polls: Voters favor legalizing pot, outlawing capital punishment

A majority of Californians support a proposition to legalize recreational marijuana and a plurality support repealing the death penalty, according to two polls released Thursday. A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California also showed support for two tax measures on the November ballot.

Highlights

60 percent of likely voters support Proposition 64 which would legalize medical cannabis.

A proposition to outlaw the death penalty leads 48 to 37 percent, however a competing measure that would retain the death penalty also is leading.

Ballot initiatives that would make smoking marijuana for recreation legal for all adults and outlaw the death penalty have jumped out to big leads, according to two new polls released Wednesday night.

Prospects look especially strong for Proposition 64, the marijuana initiative, which has the support of 60 percent of likely voters, a poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows. The measure is opposed by 36 percent of respondents, while only 4 percent said they were undecided.

Proposition 62, which would replace the death penalty with lifetime imprisonment without parole, has a tougher road to passage, according to the Field Poll, done in conjunction with UC Berkeley’s Institute of Government Studies.

The measure, which faces a competing state initiative, has the support of 48 percent of likely voters, while 37 percent oppose it and 15 percent are undecided. The pollsters cautioned, however, that a nearly identical proposition four years ago enjoyed a similar lead before being defeated by an electorate that wasn’t ready to soften sentences for some of the state’s most violent criminals.

“The default position on any crime policy initiative is hard-line because criminals are not terribly popular in public opinion,” said Frank Zimring, a UC Berkeley criminal justice professor who studies the death penalty.

While voters in recent years have appeared to be moving leftward when it comes to criminal justice issues, they seem increasingly stingy when it comes to giving the state a bigger line of credit. PPIC found that only 47 percent of likely voters back Proposition 51, a $9 billion school facilities bond that Gov. Jerry Brown is opposing as fiscally reckless.

Bond measures have historically started with about 60 percent support, said Mark Baldassare, PPIC’s president and CEO.

“The governor has really stressed fiscal caution,” he said, “and we’re seeing some fiscal caution in terms of how people are reflecting on school bonds.”

Likely voters, however, appear to be more receptive to approving taxes that won’t affect most of them.

Proposition 55, which would extend a tax hike on high earners approved by voters in 2012, is leading 54 percent to 38 percent. And Proposition 56, which would increase the cigarette tax by $2 per pack, is leading 59 percent to 36 percent, according to the PPIC poll.

The poll also found an increasingly competitive race for U.S. Senate with state Attorney General Kamala Harris holding a 7-point lead over Loretta Sanchez, an Orange County congresswoman, compared to 18 points in July.

Those figures contrast sharply with a Field-IGS poll released on Tuesday night that shows Harris’ lead increasing from 15 points in July to 22 points.

Baldassare chalked up the shifts to voter confusion in a race that has gotten little attention and leaves Republicans and independents struggling to make up their minds between two Democrats. A whopping 42 percent of Republicans volunteered that they won’t vote for either candidate, the PPIC poll found. Nearly one-in-five voters remains undecided.

“I can’t point out anything in the environment that would point to a reason why support for one candidate would go up or down,” Baldassare said. “I’m at a loss to say this tracks with something that is going on in the campaign right now.”

Voters narrowly rejected an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana smoking six years ago, but support appears much stronger this year now that several other states have already taken the plunge without major problems.

“That leads to some people deciding there isn’t as much to worry about as they might have thought,” Baldassare said.

Support for the measure spanned every age group, ethnic group and region throughout the state, the poll found. Only registered Republicans opposed it — by a six-point margin.

Respondents were far more divided about the death penalty, the Field-IGS poll found. Sizable majorities of Republicans, Central Valley residents and Protestants opposed repealing it.

Voters are divided and confused about a competing measure, Proposition 66, which calls for retaining capital punishment but revamping the system for handling death row cases. The measure is backed by 35 percent of likely voters and opposed by 23 percent, with 42 percent undecided, the Field-IGS poll found.

“The level of chaos that the polling shows on Prop. 66 is really quite extraordinary,” said Zimring, the UC Berkeley professor. “The people who cooked it up want to confuse the issue because they’d love to defeat the measure repealing the death penalty.”

California voters have grown increasingly receptive to criminal justice reforms that put fewer people in jail. The marijuana and death penalty measures come on the heels of a successful 2012 initiative to revise the state’s three-strikes law so that life imprisonment is only applicable to repeat offenders who commit violent crimes, and a winning 2014 initiative to reduce sentences for low-level crimes.

“Before the financial crisis it was very difficult to make reforms in criminal law, but since then the public started to realize that what we’re doing just wasn’t economically sustainable,” said Hadar Aviram, a professor at Hastings College of the Law and author of the book “Cheap on Crime.”

Supporters of repealing the death penalty have cited a nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office report finding that it would save the state $150 million a year in legal and incarceration costs.

The PPIC poll surveyed 1,702 California residents by phone from Sept. 9-18 in English and Spanish. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.